Big Little Lies(32)

“You’d better get on that,” said Ed.
“I’d quite like to give Celeste a makeover too,” said Madeline. “I know that sounds strange. Obviously she looks beautiful no matter what.”
“Celeste? Beautiful?” said Ed. “Can’t say I’ve noticed.”
“Ha, ha.” Madeline picked up her book and put it straight down again. “They seem so different, Jane and Celeste, but I feel like they’re also sort of similar. I can’t quite work out how.”
Ed put down his own book. “I can tell you how they’re similar.”
“Can you now?”
“They’re both damaged,” said Ed.
“Damaged?” said Madeline. “How are they damaged?”
“Don’t know,” said Ed. “I just recognize damaged girls. I used to date them. I can spot a crazy chick a mile off.”
“So was I damaged too?” asked Madeline. “Is that what attracted you?”
“Nope,” said Ed. He picked up his book again. “You weren’t damaged.”
“Yes I was!” protested Madeline. She wanted to be interesting and damaged too. “I was heartbroken when you met me.”
“There’s a difference between heartbroken and damaged,” said Ed. “You were sad and hurt. Maybe your heart was broken, but you weren’t broken. Now, be quiet, because I think I’m falling for a red herring here, and I’m not falling for it, Ms. Cornwell, no I’m not.”
“Mmmm,” said Madeline. “Well, Jane might be damaged, but I don’t see what Celeste has got to be damaged about. She’s beautiful and rich and happily married and she doesn’t have an ex-husband stealing her daughter away from her.”
“He’s not trying to steal her away,” said Ed, his eyes back on his book. “This is just Abigail being a teenager. Teenagers are crazy. You know that.”
Madeline picked up her own book.
She thought of Jane and Ziggy walking off hand in hand down the driveway as they left that afternoon. Ziggy was telling Jane something, one little hand gesticulating wildly, and Jane had her head tipped to one side, listening, her other hand holding out the car keys to open her car. Madeline heard her say, “I know! Let’s go to that place where we got those yummy tacos!”
Watching them brought back a flood of memories from the years when she was a single mother. For five years it had been just her and Abigail. They’d lived in a little two-bedroom flat above an Italian restaurant. They ate a lot of takeout pasta and free garlic bread. (Madeline had put on seven kilos.) They were the Mackenzie girls in unit nine. She’d changed Abigail’s name back to her maiden name (and she refused to change it again when she married Ed. A woman could only change her surname so many times before it got ridiculous). She couldn’t stand having Abigail walk around with her father’s surname when Nathan chose to spend his Christmas lying on a beach in Bali with a trashy little hairdresser. A hairdresser who, by the way, didn’t even have good hair: black roots and split ends.
“I always thought that Nathan’s punishment for walking out on us would be that Abigail wouldn’t love him the way she loved me,” she said to Ed. “I used to say it to myself all the time. ‘Abigail won’t want Nathan walking her down the aisle. He’ll pay the price,’ I thought. But you know what? He’s not paying for his sins. Now he’s got Bonnie, who is nicer and younger and prettier than me, he’s got a brand-new daughter who can write out the whole alphabet, and now he’s getting Abigail too! He got away with it all. He hasn’t got a single regret.”
She was surprised to hear her voice crack. She thought she was just angry, but now she knew she was hurt. Abigail had infuriated her before. She’d frustrated and annoyed her. But this was the first time she’d hurt her.
“She’s meant to love me best,” she said childishly, and she tried to laugh, because it was a joke, except that she was deadly serious. “I thought she loved me best.”
Ed put his book back down and put his arm around her. “Do you want me to kill the bastard? Bump him off? I could frame Bonnie for it.”
“Yes please,” said Madeline into his shoulder. “That would be lovely.”
Detective-Sergeant Adrian Quinlan: We haven’t made any arrests at this stage. I can say that we do believe we have probably already spoken to the person or persons involved.
Stu: I don’t think anyone, including the police, have got the faintest idea about who did what.

Chapter 17
17.

Gabrielle: I thought there might have been a certain, I don’t know, etiquette about handing out party invitations. I thought what happened on that first day of kindergarten was kind of inappropriate.